Metrolab organises the MasterClass "Urban production"

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After the 2017 MasterClass which focused on the issues of social inclusion and hospitality of urban environments, and the second MasterClass called “Designing Brussels Ecosystems”, addressing urban ecology and more specifically urban ecosystems, Metrolab organises its third MadterClass on Urban production.

The Metrolab Brussels’ MasterClasses are conceived as two-week intensive pedagogical and practical experimentations on urban situations. Lead by Metrolab, the MasterClasses bring students, researchers, professors, local actors and professionals from different fields to reflect together on a specific theoretical issue, on the basis of selected empirical cases. In return, their work is meant to provide possible contributions for the improvement of these situations. The observations, analyses and strategies are conducted according to a methodology and targets proposed by Metrolab and other local and international experts. This implies the direct interplay with the projects chosen as cases, and hence with the related local and regional actors.

Urban production is centred on a common goal: to better understand how the interactions between production in the city (productive activities in urban areas) and production of the city (the day-to-day making of the urban fabric and its functions/uses) are actually carried out in Brussels. In concrete terms, this will lead to questions about the diversity of urban productive activities, their organisation and spatialisation, the jobs they generate and their integration into the urban economy and urban morphology.
The MasterClass will also addresses the opportunities and constrains that urban location continues to offer for certain productive activities. Finally, the MasterClass will be an opportunity to question the cohabitation and/or conflicts between the productive activities and other urban functions, in a context of land pressure, transition of mobility and support for the extension of spaces dedicated to medium or luxury housing.

A preliminary conference was held on 14th and 15th November 2019 to contribute to an interdisciplinary approach to these issues, exploring three aspects of the interaction between the productive city and the production of the city: the scope of productive activities, productive citizenship and makers, and production in the city.

Watch this video to know more

Following this event, the Urban production MasterClass intends to provide an interdisciplinary exploration of urban production in Brussels in collaboration with local stakeholders.
Its specific goals will be to:

describe and understand the spatial and economic context of specific productive activities located in Brussels;

analyse the social, economic and spatial characteristics of these productive activities;

propose new configurations for productive activities in strategic sites of Brussels

To know more about the context, methodlogy and programme you can have a look on this reader.

How to apply for the next MasterClass?

You can submit your application until 3 January 2020.
To find out what the conditions are for accessing the Masterclass, please read the application.